Hidden Nature cover art

Hidden Nature

A Voyage of Discovery

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Hidden Nature

By: Alys Fowler
Narrated by: Miranda Cook
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About this listen

Leaving her garden to the mercy of the slugs, award-winning writer Alys Fowler set out in an inflatable kayak to explore Birmingham's canal network, full of little-used waterways where huge pike skulk and kingfishers dart. Her book is about noticing the wild everywhere and what it means to see beauty where you least expect it.

What happens when someone who has learned to observe her external world in such detail decides to examine her internal world with the same care? Beautifully written, honest and very moving, Hidden Nature is also the story of Alys Fowler's emotional journey: above all, this book is about losing and finding, exploring familiar places and discovering unknown horizons.

©2017 Alys Fowler (P)2017 Hodder & Stoughton Limited Biographies & Memoirs Biological Sciences Canoeing & Kayaking Europe Sailing & Boating Science Travel Writing & Commentary Water Sports Western Europe Sports Boating Sailing

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Critic reviews

"'I felt as if I'd paddled into a new country.' The gardening author and Guardian columnist with a distinctive memoir in which she forsakes her garden and takes to paddling Birmingham's little-used canal network in an inflatable kayak. The time and space she allows herself for nature observation - kingfishers, waterlilies, pikes, freshwater mussels and blackberries are all beautifully reflected on - is mirrored by her exploration of her internal self, particularly in the light of leaving her marriage and coming out as gay. An enchanting book which somehow manages to be both gutsy and delightfully soothing." ( The Bookseller)
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I don't mind books about sexuality or coming out, but I wanted to hear about Alys the gardener. I watched her programme and was fascinated about her growing her own veg for a full year. instead I got canals and lesbians! Good for you, Alys, I hope you are very happy. I gave this 3 stars because I didn't dislike the story, just wanted a gardening book.

The title was misleading

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I adored this book by Alys Fowler - I have been a fan of Ayls' other books and tv shows about gardening, so was really looking forward to this. Although I was initially disappointed that it wasn't narrated by Alys herself, the narrator has the same tone and way of speaking as Alys I think, and it is read beautifully. This is a story abut Alys' journey through kayaking the canals of Birmingham, and her personal journey of coming out and re-finding herself. As a newbie Kayaker and out lesbian, Alys takes us gently through the ups and downs of her journeys, with lots of little insights to the things in nature that she comes across on the canals. I shed a small tear at the end, which goes to show how this book touches you gently with its charm.

Utterly charming, food for the soul

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A wonderful, and sometimes heartbreaking book. The perfectly balanced story of how one woman found the wonders of a world close to water, of what it gave her in payment of her attention. This is a fantastic narration, whether you are of the boating persuasion or not

Spellbinding

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Far too much about Alys's 'coming out' for me. I have no problems with people of different sexualities but it isn't my chosen listening material.
I suspect she wrote the book simply as a means of explaining her struggles and threw in the wildlife bits after. The wildlife bits are limited to what lives in and around UK canals.
For all that it wasn't a bad 'listen' and helped relieve the boredom of decorating!

NOT WHAT I EXPECTED

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Some reviews here complain that this book focuses too much on Alys's coming out, which is surprising given how explicit the blurb is about this. Apparently people wanted more 'nature'. There's some chat about fireweed and eels, but the point is that it's very entangled -- how she comes to discover & explore her inner nature and how she discovers & explores the outside world. It's notable too how challenging this world is to ideas about beauty, lushness, purity: the Birmingham canals are full of weeds, rats, pollutants, dead & discarded things. And Alys meditates on it all without moralising or idealising. I find that refreshing.
Even if you yourself have never questioned your sexuality, I think this book can be helpful. It doesn't offer advice as much as it shows one person's struggle to confront herself, to redefine herself, to evolve her life into something that she can be at peace with (until the next evolution, of course). And who among us wouldn't benefit from having an example of that?

nature does not (just) mean green

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Absolutely loved this. I felt like I was there learning alongside alys about the history of nature are different areas. Really honest and open about her personal journey in relationships and coming out. Loved every minute!

A journey of self discovery and nature

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Part of it are beautifully written, but on the whole very repetitive and rather self indulgent

Repetitive

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it kind of put me off canals a bit. with the runbbish, lack of intetesting fauna. The human part of the story is very interesting. She says ubiquitous a lot which is ironic.

good but not amazing

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I just love this book, in essence about the author's discovery of the Birmingham canal network and subsequent journeys of self-discovery and of nature, heritage and friendship at a time of personal upheaval and change. It's packed with Alys Fowler's expansive knowledge of plants and ecology but also of a shared learning experience about the city and its liminal spaces that nature has permeated in so many ways. It's a book about gradually revealing what is hidden and in celebrating the widest range of emotions and experiences, both in our own nature and in our environments, From encountering everything from eels to mosses, with plenty of tales of love, friendship and loss, this book has just entranced me. It left me thinking of all the ways the places I have inhabited and the natural world I have encountered have been spaces for processing, solitude, connection and grounding.

A moving story of discovery on Birmingham's canals

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An honest book about a difficult decision. It's a memoir about coming out, about making difficult decisions and hurting people without meaning to and about finding joy in the scrappy edges of nature down on the canals of Birmingham. That makes it sound odd but it's really good and makes you appreciate look things you'd never noticed . After I'd read it I went out and bought a gardening book and one about wild flowers - it's that kind of book

A small beautiful journey of discovery

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